Good job by the Orioles to bounce back and take the first second half road series of 2015. It looks like some of the Orioles bats are heating up. Machado, Jones and Schoop have been hot lately and some others are warming up as well which could be a good sign for the offense. If Schoop continues hitting like this, Buck should consider moving him up in the order.

The Orioles beat the Blue Jays 6-1 last night to improve their season series record to 3-6 vs the Jays. Miguel Gonzalez pitched 7.2 to pick up his fourth win of the season. After some sloppy play recently, the defense played much better including a spectacular diving tag out of a running at third by Manny Machado. The offense scored 5 runs in the bottom of the second inning to provide all the runs the Orioles would need.

Brad Bergesen pitched his best game of the year and got 6 runs of support to notch his first win and the first shut-out of the Rays this season. When Bergesen has confidence and gets on a roll he has proven to be a pretty dependable pitcher, but on the other hand when he’s bad he tends to be really bad. He’s like the pitching version of Luke Scott. The Rays have been the hottest team in the AL since the O’s swept them to start the season and rocked Bergesen a week ago for 5 earned runs in 4 2/3 innings.

With this excellent outing it also completed a string of 5 straight quality starts by the entire starting 5 of the staff. You have to wonder if Tillman and Bergesen are looking over their shoulders at the impending return of Brian Matusz.

The Orioles went hard after free agent first basemen and Baltimore area native Mark Teixeira, but lost out in the negotiations to the hated New York Yankees when he signed a 8 year 180 million dollar contract. Orioles fans are angry that the Orioles did not sign Teixeira. Fans had hoped to have a new hometown hero in the Cal Ripken mold to route for, but while the Orioles were serious contenders in the free agent sweepstakes they may not have been a serious option due to their 11 year losing streak.

The Orioles are considering the future of Jim Johnson on their pitching staff. He was brought through the majors as a started but finds himself entrenched as the O’s current setup man after his spectacular season in the pen. The O’s options are to leave him as the setup man, move him back to starter, or transition him from setup man to closer. There are other moves that may sway the O’s decision one way or the other like if they trade George Sherrill, the health of Chris Ray, and/or the status of our starting 5. My preference would be for the O’s to trade Sherrill while the demand is high and move Johnson to closer and ease Ray or Matt Albers into the setup role. Earlier in the year I was in favor of Johnson moving to take over one of the spots in the starting rotation, but the injuries to our bullpen changed my mind for this year. I wouldn’t be against moving him to starter if Sherrill remains an Oriole.

The Orioles did make a move in trading Chad Bradford to the Tampa Bay Rays for a player to be named later. This takes $4.5 million off of the books for the O’s. Hopefully the O’s will be able to get some other waiver trades done before the end of August. Bradford was a good specialty pitcher for the O’s so it isn’t a good thing to see him go, but the money saved and the spot opening for other younger prospects is a good thing. The emergence of Jim Johnson and Matt Albers in the bullpen probably left the O’s pretty confident that they could get opposing righties out with more regularity.

So far the Orioles have made no moves before the July 31st trade deadline. Whispers from the warehouse are that they won’t make any moves for the waiver deadline, but will attempt to make some moves before the “real” deadline on August 31st. The O’s have some players that they might be able to move in August (like Millar, Payton, and/or R. Hernandez), but they probably will not net the big return that a July 31st or offseason trade would. I suppose that the O’s will probably be active during the offseason again, so it isn’t anything to get all upset about. Andy MacPhail is in it for the long haul, I guess I’d just prefer that he were picking off some more prospects right now to keep it fresh in my mind.